This bird business is getting out of hand. If you’d told me five years ago that I’d become a birdwatcher in the not-too-distant future, I’d have har-de-har-harred and advised you to seek professional help.

Be that as it may, I found myself prowling around in a cemetery the other day in search of an Eastern Screech Owl I’d heard rumour of. The problem with the location for the search was that, in addition to my little bird problem, I also have a real thing for cemeteries. It sounded like the perfect combo to me. Now who needs professional help, hmm? Hey, we all have our demons…

Well, the owl was nowhere to be found, although, I have to confess, my search was perhaps slightly less diligent than it might have been in a less fascinating environment.

Here’s what I did see (please excuse any photographic weirdness you might encounter – I just got PhotoShop Elements 11 and we’re becoming acquainted):

And, as if that weren’t thrilling enough (okay, thrilling to me, anyway), I found someone who is…er…that is to say was more enamoured with their trailer than Bob is with ours!

Hey, do you think they’d do an Airstream tombstone for him when he kicks the bucket?

On Day 13, we packed up and left the spectacular Monument Valley behind.

I recalled from my last trip to Moab, nearly 20 years ago, that it wuzz right sum purdy. The closer we got, the more I began to think that this was one of those times when memory out-strips reality. Y’know, like how everything just seemed bigger when you were a kid. I was just thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have made such a big deal out of coming here when…WHAM! We came upon this just sorta hanging out beside the road:

After doing a wee bit of research, I’ve learned that this is called Church Rock, and that little thing on the bottom that looks like a door, is a man-made hole. Yep, some genius spotted this giant ROCK and thought it might be a really cool idea to burrow into it. The aforementioned genius only got about three feet in before realizing the error of his ways. I guess there was nobody handy to eye-roll him and say, “Hellooooo, it’s a ROCK, ya doof!”

A bit further down the road, we came upon this (the arch, the car etc. we brought with us):

You can always spot one of Bob’s photogs. He runs out into traffic so he can get his (cue angels) trailer into the picture. That insignificant thing in the background is called Wilson Arch because some schmoe named (you guessed it) Wilson once lived next to it. That was his big claim to fame (that he didn’t live long enough to know about).

So, my big plan was to just do a photog blowout for the Moab Days, but this particular area of the world is a little overwhelming from a scenery standpoint (to say the least!) that I have over a thousand photogs to go through. Choosing a couple for a blog became an ordeal. Choosing a couple of hundred for a blog is a no-brainer. Without even scratching the surface, here are a few (to keep me from getting glared at) for now:

I was tempted to dumb that sky down a bit so it didn’t look so fake. Blame it on my polarizer 😛

(One of Bob’s magic moments)

(One of Shari’s – Wow, eh?)

And last, but least, this is a shot of one of the arches we saw in (of all places) Arches National Monument: